Budget brides with budget dresses

THE happiest day of your life could also become the biggest rip-off of your life if you are a budget-conscious bride keen to avoid an expensive wedding.

Wedding dress designers and seamstresses across Sydney report a dramatic increase in brides needing drastic alterations to cheap gowns bought online - which often arrive sizes too big days before the wedding.

Effie Faridi said more than half her trade at her Mosman bridal alterations store was fixing dresses bought online. Two years ago, she said, that trade was almost non-existent. ''Most of the time, the dresses come too big,'' Ms Faridi said. ''An American size 10 is an Australian size 12.''

Making alterations ... Andrew Dunshea at work. Photo: Tamara Dean

Dresses bought online from China were the worst quality, especially when brides had spent less than $600. Alterations, she said, could cost up to $700.

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''Sometimes I have to wholly remake it. It is terrible.''

Roderick Ng, the director of Weddings by Master/slave in Double Bay, said buying a wedding dress should be an investment, not something done over the internet.

''A lot of brides-to-be are taking a huge gamble, but they end up paying us more to make it work.''

Andrew Dunshea, a wedding dress designer in Leura, estimates he sees at least one disgruntled bride a week. ''I had one poor girl [who] ordered her dress and it only came two days before her wedding.

''You could put two people in the dress, it was that big. I was able to rescue it for her.''

One of his clients, Marissa Tofler, bought her ''Princess Mermaid'' style dress on eBay for $280.

But when she unwrapped her dream dress, she found a disaster. ''One side was bigger than the other,'' she said. ''That was on the Wednesday and I was getting married on the Saturday.''